PC Magazine (sometimes referred to as
PC Mag) is an online computer magazine that was
published monthly in the United States both in print and online until January 2009. In
November 2008 it was announced that the print edition of the
magazine would be discontinued, but there would still be an online
version. The magazine is published by Ziff Davis Publishing Holdings Inc. The
first edition was released in January 1982 as a monthly called
PC (the Magazine was not added to the logo until
the first major redesign in January 1986). PC Magazine was
created by David
Bunnell and financed by Tony Gold, former owner of Lifeboat
Associates. The magazine grew beyond the capital required to
publish it, and to solve this problem, Tony Gold sold the magazine
to Ziff-Davis and moved it to New York. David Bunnell and his staff left to form
PC
World magazine.[1]PC Magazine moved to biweekly publication in 1983 after a
single monthly issue swelled to more than 800 pages. As of early
2009, the magazine will exist only as an online publication.[2]

The magazine's editor-in-chief, Lance Ulanoff, ascended to his
current post in July 2007. Jim Louderback had held this position
since 2005, but accepted the position of CEO of Revision3, an online media
company.

Contents

Overview

PC Magazine provides reviews and previews of the latest hardware and software for the information technology
professional. Articles are written by leading experts such as John C. Dvorak,
whose regular column and Inside Track feature are among the
magazine's most popular attractions. Other regular departments
include columns by long-time editor-in-chief Michael J.
Miller (Forward Thinking), Bill Machrone, and Jim Louderback,
as well as:

First Looks (a collection of reviews of
newly-released products),

Pipeline (a collection of short articles and
snippets on computer-industry developments),

After Hours (a section about various computer
entertainment products; the designation "After Hours" is a legacy
of the magazine's traditional orientation towards business
computing), and

Abort, Retry, Fail? (a
beginning-of-the-magazine humor page which for a few years was
known as Backspace—and was subsequently the last
page).

Development and
evolution

The magazine has evolved significantly over the years. The most
drastic change has been the shrinkage of the publication due to
contractions in the computer-industry ad market and the easy
availability of the Internet, which has tended to make computer
magazines less "necessary" than they once were. This is also the
primary reason for the November 2008 decision to discontinue
the print version. Where once mail-order vendors had huge listing
of products in ads covering several pages, there is now a single
page with a reference to a website. At one time (the 1980s through
the mid-1990s), the magazine averaged about 400 pages an issue,
with some issues breaking the 500- and even 600-page marks. In the
late 1990s, as the computer-magazine field underwent a drastic
pruning, the magazine shrank to 300-something and then
200-something pages.

Today, the magazine runs about 150 pages an issue. It has
adapted to the new realities of the 21st century by reducing its
once-standard emphasis on massive comparative reviews of computer
systems, hardware peripherals, and software packages to focus more
on the broader consumer-electronics market (including cell phones,
PDAs, MP3 players, digital cameras, and so on). Since the
late 1990s, the magazine has taken to more frequently reviewing Mac software and
hardware.

PC Magazine has consistently positioned itself as the
leading source of information about PCs and PC-related products, and its
development and evolution have mirrored those of computer
journalism in general. The magazine practically invented the idea
of comparative hardware and software reviews in 1984 with a
groundbreaking "Project Printers" issue. For many years thereafter,
the blockbuster annual printer issue, featuring more than 100
reviews, was a PC Magazine tradition.

The publication also took on a series of editorial causes over
the years, including copy protection (the magazine refused
to grant its coveted Editors' Choice award to any product that used
copy protection) and the "brain-dead" 286 (then-editor-in-chief Bill Machrone
said the magazine would still review 286s but would not recommend
them).

PC Magazine was a booster of early versions of the OS/2 operating system in the late
1980s, but then switched to a strong endorsement of the Microsoft
Windows operating environment after the release of Windows 3.0
in May 1990. Some OS/2 users accused of the magazine of ignoring
OS/2 2.x versions and later.

During the dot-com boom, the magazine began focusing heavily on
many of the new Internet businesses, prompting complaints from some
readers that the magazine was abandoning its original emphasis on
computer technology. After the collapse of the technology bubble in
the early 2000s, the magazine returned to a more traditional
approach.

Alternative methods of
publication

The online edition began in late 1994 and started producing a
digital edition of the magazine through Zinio in 2004. For some years in the late 1990s,
a CD-ROM version containing
interactive reviews and the full text of back issues was
available.

There was also a special "Network Edition" of the print magazine
from 1993 to 1997. This evolved into "Net Tools", which was part of
the general press run, and the current "Internet User" and
"Internet Business" sections.

Numerous books have been published under the "PC Magazine"
designation, as well. John C. Dvorak's name has also appeared
on many books.